Sunday. 8/III.1914.

Dear friend! You are answering my sad letter2 and I have completely forgotten how, what, when I wrote - that is the inconvenience of correspondence from too far away.

Well, I shall continue the conversation generally, in spite of this interruption.

Yesterday I was infuriated by the most impudent letter from Huysmans3, to whom Popov has not yet delivered his report4!!! And he promised to do so on 4.II. (On 2.II I was leaving Brussels and the cafe - remember? Don't you know the name of the cafe? near the Gare du Nord1*- wrote about it to Huysmans5).

I sent a frantic registered letter with a return receipt to that scoundrel Popov6: do whatever you like, devil take you, whatever love and illnesses you want, but if you have made a party commitment, fulfill it or give it to someone else in time. Wrote also to Carlson7. And Huysmans replied que ses expressions sont outrageantes qu'il n'a pas en aucun droit de les employer et s'il ne les retira pas formellement, c'est la derni6re lettre que je lui ecris!82*.

Bastard Popov - made me look like a cheat in front of Huysmans.....

There's hardly any news from Moscow. There seems to be no Moscow Committee. The regional workers are working well, but the pace is slow. Now the Plekhanovites + 1 "our" literary man are putting a professional organ there9. We are afraid (entre nous)3* that ours will not be bypassed.

We do not know whether "Rabotnitsa "10 will be published after the arrests.

P.S. No news from "Brother "11! If you write him, ask for letters and news and inform me!

It seems that he had a conflict with "beautiful but stupid woman" before her "death "124*.

Published - "Rossiyskaya Gazeta", No. 10, January 18, 1994.

Fond 2, op. 1, d. 3221 - autograph.

1* This refers to the cafe "Cosmopolitan" near the Severny Railway Station.

2* That his expressions are offensive, that he has no right to use them, and if he does not categorically refuse them, this will be the last letter I write to him.

3* Between us.

4* No news from "Brother!" If you write to him, ask about letters and news and inform me. He seems to have had a conflict with a "beautiful but foolish woman" before her "death" (English).

1The letters of Lenin to Inessa Fyodorovna Armand published in this collection are in addition to those already known from the Complete Works of Lenin.

I.F.Armand - the daughter of French actors, since 1893 married to a Russian manufacturer A.E.Armand, who had several children, in 1904 broke with the bourgeois milieu and joined the revolutionary movement in Russia; since that year she - a member of the RSDLP. She met Lenin and N.K. Krupskaya in Paris in 1910.

Lenin's letters to her are characterized by special trustworthiness, lyricism and emotional uplift. Armand's personal letters to Lenin have not survived, except for one; an excerpt from it is given below. This letter reveals the nature of their relationship.

(Dec. 1913)

"Saturday morning.

Dear, here I am in the ville Lumiere and my first impression is most disgusting. Everything is irritating in it - and the gray color of the streets, and dressed-up women, and overheard conversations, and even the French language. And when I came to boulevard St. Michel1*, to Orleanca, etc., memories came from all corners, and I became so sad and even creepy. I remembered former moods, feelings, thoughts, and it was a pity because they would never come back again. Many things seemed green and young - maybe it was a passed stage, but still it was a pity that you could never think like that, feel like that, perceive reality like that again - you would regret that life was passing away. I was sad because Arosa was something temporary, something transitional, Arosa was still very close to Krakow, and Paris was something final. We've parted, darling, we've parted with you. And it hurts so much. I know, I feel, you will never come here! Looking at familiar places, I clearly realized, as never before, what a great place you still had in my life here in Paris, that almost all my activities here in Paris were connected with the thought of you by a thousand threads. I was not at all in love with you then, but even then I loved you very much. I would have done without kisses even now, but it would have been a joy to see you, to talk to you sometimes, and it would not have hurt anyone. Why deprive me of that? You're asking if I'm angry that you "spent" the breakup. No, I don't think you did it for you.

There were many good things in Paris and in my relations with N[adezhda] K[onstantinovna]. In one of our last conversations she told me that I had become especially dear and close to her only recently. And I loved her almost from the first acquaintance. In relation to her comrades there is some special charming softness and tenderness in her. In Paris, I loved to come to her and sit in her room. I used to sit near her table - first you talk about business, and then you linger, talking about the most diverse matters. Maybe sometimes you'd bore her. I feared you more than fire at the time. I wanted to see you, but I would rather, it seems, die on the spot than to enter your room, and when for some reason you entered N.K.'s room, I was immediately lost and stupid. I always marveled and envied the courage of others who went straight in to see you and talk to you. Only in Longjumeau and then the following fall, due to translations, etc., did I get a little used to you. I loved so much not only to listen to you, but also to look at you when you spoke. First of all, your face would become so animated, and secondly, it was convenient to look at you because you didn't notice it at the time....

Sunday night

I was at Nikolai Vasilyevich's today. I found Kamsky there with his family and Igolkin, who has just returned from America and is scolding her about everything. He told me a lot of interesting things. They have nicknamed me here the disappeared Dzhokonda - and they justify this opinion in a very long and amusing way. Tomorrow there will be a meeting of the CPE [see doc. 57, note 1]. I am thinking of reading the report of the meeting here in front of the group and I want to ask your advice about conspiracy, what can be said, what cannot be said. E.g., is it possible, when speaking about organizations and indicating the variety of organizational forms, to state directly that in Moscow it is so-and-so, and in Petersburg it is otherwise, and is it possible, for example, to say that the organization is based on such-and-such legal organizations (professional unions, singing societies, cooperatives, etc.), or is it not conspiratorial, etc.? I will be grateful for any advice and instructions you send me about the report. Just answer me soon. By the way, they told me that there is a rumor in the newspapers (or maybe this rumor comes from Rubinov) that during the conference organized by the International Socialist Bureau some commission consisting of Vandervelde and Huysmans will play the role of an arbitration court - is it true? Is this true? I also ask you this. When you write to me about matters, somehow mark what you can and cannot say to the CPE. Sometimes you want to say something and you don't know how you see it. Igolkin, by the way, has a funny position. He is neither in our group nor with the reconciliators (he dislikes the latter very much). Apparently, he likes you very much personally, but he sees some merit in the fact that he can still stand up to you. Here, he says, I am such a strongman, I do not give in to Lenin himself. I think there is a lot of flattery in such an attitude, but it's still funny.

Well, darling, that's enough for today. I want to send a letter. There was no letter from you yesterday! I am so afraid that my letters don't get to you - I sent you three letters (this is the fourth) and a telegram. Have you not received them? The most incredible thoughts come to mind on this subject. I have also written to N[adezhda] K[onstantinovna], Brother, Zina and Stepa.

Didn't anyone get anything! A big kiss to you.

Your Inessa."

1* Boulevard Saint-Michel (French).

1(RCCHIDNI, f. 127, op. 1, d. 61, l. 1-2).

2Letter from V.I.Lenin has not been found.

3See: Correspondance entre Lenin et Camille Huismans. 1905-1914. Paris, MCMXLIII, p. 141. For Lenin's reply to K. Huismans's letter of March 3, 1914, see: Lenin V.I. Complete Collected Works, vol. 48, с. 268-269.

4This refers to the report of the Central Committee of the RSDLP to the Brussels unification meeting convened by the Executive Committee of the International Socialist Bureau. The report was written by V.I. Lenin (see: Lenin V.I. Complete Collected Works, vol. 24, pp. 296-303).

5V.I.Lenin on February 2, 1914 (A.D.) informed K.Huysmans that he had written the report for the ISB and asked I.F.Popov to organize the translation of the report and send it to the addressee (see: Lenin V.I. Complete Works, vol. 48, p. 259).

6Lenin's letter has not been found.

7 Lenin informed K. Huysmans about sending the letter to K. M. Carlson on February 22 (March 7), 1914 (see: Lenin V. I. Complete Works, vol. 48, p. 269).

8V.I.Lenin replied to K.Huysmans on February 22 (March 7), 1914 (see: Lenin V.I. Complete Works, vol. 48, pp. 268-269).

9Obviously, it means "Rabochy Trud" - a literary-political and social-professional weekly magazine. It was published in Moscow, the first issue was published on June 14 (27), 1914. Four issues were published. The magazine was subjected to withdrawals, on December 17 (30), 1914 it was banned by the Moscow Court Chamber.

10 "Rabotnitsa" - a legal magazine, published in St. Petersburg. The editorial staff included I.F.Armand, N.K.Krupskaya, A.I.Elizarova, L.N.Stal, K.N.Samoylova, P.F.Kudelli, K.I.Nikolaeva. On February 18 (March 3), 1914 almost all members of the editorial board who were in Russia were arrested, however, the first issue of the magazine was published on February 23 (March 8), 1914. The publication was discontinued on June 26 (July 9), 1914. A total of 7 issues were published, three of which were confiscated.

11Brother is one of the pseudonyms of L.B.Kamenev.

12It seems that V.I.Lenin is referring to the arrest of E.F.Rozmirovich in St.Petersburg on February 18 (March 3), 1914. She was exiled to Kharkov province for 5 years under the public supervision of the police.